Have you noticed all the recipes for rhubarb, peas and other spring things popping up? Yeah, me too. I have to admit that it kind of gets on my nerves. I totally get the pressure to make seasonally relevant recipes, but the truth is, seasonally relevant recipes in early April, in hardiness zone 6b and below are generally overwintered root vegetables!

This is what seasonal vegetables look like in Philadelphia in early April. They came from the farm stand exactly like this.

In a few more weeks, we’ll be seeing the bright, fresh, colorful goodies pop up in the markets. We’ll have greens and lettuces galore. We’ll have rhubarb. Now, though, we have beat beets. And wrinkled cabbages. And turnips. And I am SUPER cool with that, because it means I get to eat sauerruben for a few months more.

Sauerruben is punchy and pungent and it has the tiniest bit of horseradish bite. I can’t get enough of it, and I do become a bit of a lady hulk when someone eats the last of the jar before the next one is fermented. I like it fermented on the short side, because that horseradish tang is still really strong, but it will keep fermenting like a champ for a month or more.